Sharing Butterflies with our Grand Friends

Today we took our butterflies to our Grand Friend's home.

Many of our friends from the extended care wing were gathered out in the garden.

We shared a butterfly fingerplay with them.

Then we sat in the middle of them and opened up the butterfly container.

One butterfly flew up and landed on the little girl in pink.

She didn't notice but the rest of did.

 We started taking the butterflies out.

I tried picking them up with sticks but our fingers worked better.

What a wonderful experience to share between young and old.

We had some success lifting and carrying them with sticks.

Then we discovered that the butterflies were happy to be lifted out

on the orange slices.

Meanwhile this little fellow was still walking around the circle sharing his butterfly.

The butterflies were comfortable to stop and rest in many places

on those that watched.

When all the butterflies were released a few children noticed a caterpillar crawling 

on the bottom of the container.

We carefully picked it up and moved it to the garden.

We also noticed a couple more chrysalis still intact.

We'll take them back to school.

This is a favourite time of year for all of us.

Playing Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons

This morning was our annual Picnic in the Gardens

and each year the facilitators act out a story

for all the families.

We chose Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons.

Pete showed up to help tell the story.

Each of us took a part.

Colleen read the story, I was Pete, Phylis showed the word "POP".

Meghan showed the phrase "OH NO!" and Carlene showed the

numbers.

"Literacy in Action"

It was a great story to act out and share with the families.

I'm already thinking of button activities to follow up at school.

Maybe make our own button shirts, sort buttons...

What would you suggest?

Goodbye Chicks

Our chicks went back to the farm today

but we had a great few days

watching them hatch and checking them over.

One of the chicks had a difficult time hatching.

Mrs. Cochrane, our kindergarten teacher, showed us how we could help him.

He had begun to dry out so I sprayed a little water through 

the crack in the shell

and helped peel the shell away.

Once he was able to poke out we moved him back to the incubator

So he could hatch out on his own.

Check out this video (scroll down to June 3)

https://www.facebook.com/Brooklyn-StrongStart-160297557384845/?ref=bookmarks

Love how they are pretending to document the chicks with our

classroom cameras.

More chicks were born 

for a total of 11.

They are incredibly soft and tempting for the little ones to try to grab.

Overall the children were very respectful, cautious and gentle 

with the chicks.

Thank you to Clea for giving us the eggs to learn about

where baby chicks come from.

Waiting for Butterflies

Our caterpillars arrived three weeks ago.

We've watched them grow

and form their chrysalis.

Now it's been just over a week and the waiting is hard.

Art helped us stay busy.

We did marble rolling on orange tissue paper with black

and brown paint.

They look fabulous on our windows.

We worked on symmetry.

And on large floor puzzles.

The last few days we've been painting butterflies

to welcome our butterflies when they arrive.

I expect to see some on Monday.